rope,
resided a little way from me up the street; and I saw the good old man
with broad brimmed hat and straight coat pass my window every day.
Richard Mott lived but a little way from the town, and on the other side
resided the widow of the celebrated Joseph John Gurney. The wittiest
Quaker in the town was my neighbor, William J. Allinson, the editor of
the "Friends Review," and an intimate friend of John G. Whittier. One
afternoon he ran over to my room, and said: "Friend Theodore, John G.
Whittier is at my house, and wants to see thee; he leaves early in the
morning." I hastened across the street and, in the modest parlor of
Friend Allinson, I saw, standing before the fire, a tall, slender man in
Quaker dress, with a very lofty brow, and the finest eye I have ever
seen in any American, unless it were the deep ox-like eye of Abraham
Lincoln. We had a pleasant chat about the anti-slavery, temperance and
other moral reforms; and I went home with something of the feeling that
Walter Scott says he had after seeing "Rabbie Burns," Whittier was a
retiring, home-keeping man. He never crossed the ocean and seldom went
even outside of his native home in Massachusetts. During the summer of
1870 he ventured down to Brooklyn on a visit to his friend, Colonel
Julian Allen. On coming home one day, my servant said to me, "There was
a tall Quaker gentleman called here, and left his name on this piece of
paper." I was quite dumb-founded to read the name of "John G. Whittier,"
and I lost no time in making my way up to the house where he was
staying. When I inquired how he had come to do me the honor of a call,
he said: "Well, yesterday, when I arrived and my friend Allen drove me
up here, we passed a meeting house with a tall steeple, and when I heard
it was thine, I determined to run down to thy house and see thee." As I
was to have the "Chi Alpha," the oldest and the most celebrated clerical
association of New York at my house the next afternoon, I invited him to
come and sup with them. He cordially consented, and it may be supposed
that the "Chi Alpha" was very glad to put aside for that evening all
other matters, and listen to the fresh, racy and humorous talk of the
great poet. Underneath his grave and shy sobriety, flowed a most gentle
humor. He could tell a good story, and when he was describing the usages
of the Quakers in regard to "Speaking in Meetings," he told us that
sometimes the voluntary remarks were not quite to the edif